Numerous applications benefit from the ability to make an identification of a terminal over a network. Some typical conventional approaches attempt to identify a terminal through use of cookies, data crumbs, or registry entries or software. While such approaches are often effective, they are problematic. Network services that download data or files to a user computer raise issues of privacy concerns. Sometimes, such data inadvertently exposes security threats on the user's terminal. Additionally, cookies, data crumbs and registry entries can typically be altered by a user, making their use too unreliable for some applications.